This study aims to examine the impact of digital environments in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) on the civic development of elementary school students and to explore a new model of citizenship grounded in the relationality of difference. While advances in AI technology broaden learners’ access to diverse information, they also intensify filter bubble and echo chamber effects, which may lead children and adolescents?whose critical thinking and media literacy are not yet fully developed?to uncritically adopt particular viewpoints or reinforce misunderstandings and hostility toward others. In response, this study critically reviews the limitations of traditional democratic citizenship education and proposes an expanded conception of citizenship that understands “difference” as a horizontal and non-oppressive relationship. The relationality of difference goes beyond merely respecting diversity, highlighting a co-creative process with others through four interrelated elements: recognition, responsibility, responsiveness, and interdependence. Building on this framework, the study analyzes a case of ecological transformation education to examine how students experience the relationality of difference in classroom practices and, through these experiences, extend their democratic citizenship toward ecological citizenship. The findings suggest that civic education in the AI era must move beyond information literacy to cultivate relational capacities that respect difference and enact interdependence, thereby offering concrete educational implications for fostering sustainable and inclusive citizenship.
Jeong Woo Jang (Tue,) studied this question.